Networked machines not showing under 'shared' in Finder sidebar

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Networked machines not showing under 'shared' in Finder sidebar.

I know this was a common problem when Leopard first came out but with all the updates (I'm at 10.5.3) the feeling I get from Googling around is that most people seem to get network shares appearing OK now.

However, I'm still not seeing my home network of PCs showing in Finder so I thought I'd try to debug the problem again.

I have Googled further for a solution and searched here and tried everything I've found.

Here's where I'm at:

1. Took my macbook to a friends (5 PCs via a Netgear router a mix of Vista, XP and 98!). Open the lid from sleep. Within seconds all 5 PCs appeared in the the Finder sidebar.

2. Tried the same thing at home (3 vista desktops, 1 vista laptop, 1 xp laptop, same netgear router) - none show under 'shared'

3. Using cmd+k, entering an IP address works fine. I can copy to and from all of my network estate this way.

4. MS Remote desktop works with all of my networked machines.

5. All of my networked PCs can access my mac shared folders

6. the behaviour is the same whether connected by wi-fi or cable

7. The symptoms suggest it's my router blocking some kind of information that's required for detection so I've reset my router back to factory defaults (as my friends is set that way), but no change.

8. Installed bonjour for windows, can now chat between machines using adium on the mac and pidgin on the PCs, so bonjour seems to be broadcasting/working OK.

9. Turned off IPv6 and flushed the cache

10. The only advice I've seen but not tried it to delete the folder Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/System Configuration - I haven't tried this as I'd like some options from members here as to what I might lose or endanger by deleting that folder

Networking, seems to be working fine as far as configuration/firewall setup etc is concerned but my machines just don't want to appear under shared in finder.

Anyone any ideas why? and ideally any ideas on a fix?
 
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Bump

I have the same problem. Initially the WinXP boxes were showing up. The two Macs see each other via the router, but don't see the Wintel. Tried all kinds of permissions adjustments to no avail.
 
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Looks like the joke may be on me. I disabled Zone Alarm and bingo the PC's appeared on the Macs, but the macs are not appearing on the PC's.

Zone Alarm has the trusted network correctly added, but.........hmmmm
 
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mrplow
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Looks like the joke may be on me. I disabled Zone Alarm and bingo the PC's appeared on the Macs, but the macs are not appearing on the PC's.

Zone Alarm has the trusted network correctly added, but.........hmmmm

I hope a change in zone alarm or a swap to another firewall helps but I don't have ZA on my vista machines so that's not the route of my problems I don't think. Plus my friends network (where I can see all PCs) has ZA on.
 
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I'm also experiencing the same problem. I have tried all the suggestions above but still no luck. Here's a detailed description of the problem.

I have recently just purchased my first Mac (new MacBook yay!!!) and I'm having a little trouble connecting to my home PC. The Mac is running the latest Leopard 10.5.5 and is fully up to date software wise. The PC is running Vista Ultimate 32-bit with in-built firewall. The Mac connects to my router (o2 wireless box II) wirelessly and the PC is wired.

I can connect to the Vista PC by using command + K and it will then appear is the Finders sidebar, but if I reboot it disappears and I have to command + K to get it back. I have enabled sharing via SMB on my Mac and I can see my Mac shares on my home Vista system, just not the other way around (unless I connect via command + K)

I have taken my Macbook to work and connected to that network wirelessly and the work computers which are all PC's (mixture of XP, 2000 and Vista) all appeared in the Finders sidebar, so it looks like it’s a problem with my home setup

I have read loads of forum post from people with the same problem, but I just can't get it to work.

Please, if someone is able to help, that would be great as I have done a full erase and re-install of my MacBook (twice!!!) and still no joy and I really want to be able to just connect easily through the Finders sidebar so if anyone can offer any assistance, I would be very grateful.

Thanks!
 
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It's been over 4 months since I started this thread but alas . . . . . I still have the same problem and I don't think I'm any nearer a solution.

Networking is still (IMHO) Leopards weakest feature
 
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Funny how i have encountered this problem twice, and on both times after an extense google search i ended up in this thread.

I still dont know how i fixed the issue on both cases, but force quit the finder or restarting the machine did the trick for me.

As you have probably tried those more than a dozen im really curious on what's going on.

A fresh install could help (?).
 
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I really do love my new MacBook, but I agree at the moment networking looks a little flaky. Done two fresh installs and still having the problem. Strange though how it works fine at work although we are running a domain and not a workgroup so that may have something to do with it? If anyone one else has any ideas please share them as we are not the only ones having this problem.

Thanks in advance.
 
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force quit

that's bizzare. Having the same problem as you all.. I had only one user account with this problem. The other two on the same machine showed the networked macs. Logging out and back in made no difference. Just force quitting the finder brought the networked machines back into the "shared" part of the sidebar. Bravo.
 
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One more with the same problem , since the release of Leopard, with Tiger, never had any problems with networking.
Im having the same problem at house and at the Office. At the office though, i can see the other macs, but no the windows xp machines. At home sometimes im able to see the windows xp machine but after a while dissapears...
So many months and i can't fix that, i hate networks and with Leopard i thought it would be an easy thing, but so far i have to use my usb stick to transfer files from my Mac to Xp machines...
There are tons of articles about this problem over the web, but none is giving a straight answer to that problem.
Can i say thanks Apple for doing this so hard for us?
 
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Same problem here. I have two windows machines and a linux machine that are all working, but my gf's macbook doesn't show anything under shared in finder or network. It will work using Go->Connect to Server. I've tried all the suggestions I can find and when none of them worked I restored all computers to their default settings.

Today I brought the macbook to the office and it automatically shows all of the office machines (including my work pc which doesn't show up at home) under shared in finder and in Network.

This leads me to believe that it's not the configuration on any of my computers, but something with my router. I'm using a netgear wgt624 with the latest firmware installed. The only changes I have made from the defaults were to set the NAT Type to 'Open' for the xbox360, changed the SSID of the router from NETGEAR and enabled WEP. Any help would be greatly appreciated before I'm bald from pulling my hair out. :)
 
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10. The only advice I've seen but not tried it to delete the folder Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/System Configuration - I haven't tried this as I'd like some options from members here as to what I might lose or endanger by deleting that folder

This is the only one I haven't tried as well. What will this do?
 
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Have you guys tried unticking Connected Servers in Finder Preferences, restart and tick Connected Servers in Finder Preferences again?
 
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Have you guys tried unticking Connected Servers in Finder Preferences, restart and tick Connected Servers in Finder Preferences again?

I tried this and it did not work. Another piece of info is that when I ping other machines on the network from the Leopard Macbook I get strange results.

If I ping by IP address (192.168.xxx.xxx) it resolves correctly, but if I ping by machine name, all machines on the network, including the macbook, resolve to my WAN ip address (24.28.xxx.xxx).

This doesn't happen from the windows machines. Is anyone else with the problem experiencing this behavior?
 
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Another difference that I thought of between my work network vs my home network is that my work network has a domain controller where as there is no local dns in my home network. I think this means that at home, the macbook is relying on bonjour to find other machines on the local network. Does this sound correct?
 
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The only event I see that keeps reoccurring is at first everyone can see neighboring computers after a while they disappear. Is there some sort of cache that gets corrupted?
 
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The only event I see that keeps reoccurring is at first everyone can see neighboring computers after a while they disappear. Is there some sort of cache that gets corrupted?

I haven't experienced this yet, but I have seen it mentioned in other threads.
 
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MacBook Not Playing Nice with Mac Servers, but loves Windows Servers?!

Hello everyone... I just joined this forum, so if this particular issue has already been answered someplace else, I hope that someone will point me there. I have a lot of reading to do here...

Anyway, as far as this problem goes, here's what I can add to it:

I actually have the issue where none of our Mac shares are showing in the sidebar, but all of the Windows shares are there. It almost looks like afp was somehow "turned off". The problem with that is that a cmd-k and the fqdn gives me access to the appropriate share(s). In fact, the Mac share then shows up in the side bar all alone, among 20 or so Windows Shares.
Another interesting point is that if I do a cmd-k with the 'hostname'.local (instead of hostname.domain.com or fqdn) it fails to connect. Anyone know what would cause that? I already checked DNS... looks good.
By the way, this is only happening on one of our MacBooks, and all of the other Macs seem to not be flaky like this one.

We've cleared all of the caches, preferences, and even the logs. Rebooted the system, and still the same symptoms.

This is now starting to cause bootup issues, as error messages are hammering the user stating that the server cannot be found, because it's looking for hostname.local, instead of the hostname.domain.com names. I've compared the settings of this computer to other Macs that are working perfectly fine, and I'm still stuck with one Mac that doesn't want to cooperate with me.

The one thing that I read in another forum was that early releases of Leopard may have had some bugs in it that seem to make net admins' lives miserable, but how accurate is that?

If anyone can help / point me in the right direction, that would be great and I would sure appreciate it very much.

Thank you!!
 
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I had some success going into advanced network settings > TCP/IP > and choosing to configure IPv4 with a manual address, and setting the IP for my computer manually.
 
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MacBook Not Playing Nice with Mac Servers, but loves Windows Servers?!

I had some success going into advanced network settings > TCP/IP > and choosing to configure IPv4 with a manual address, and setting the IP for my computer manually.

Thanks for the reply... although it took several wipe 'n loads and a total clearing of everything that could have recorded this Mac's hostname, MAC address, everything... and then it seemed to work...

Although, rhajastan, I will put your suggestion in my notebook of tips 'n tricks for the future...

Thank you!
 

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